Columns

We’ve become so jaded in national elections by the disconnect between casting a vote as a citizen and the decisions of the Electoral College that we can forget the power of a single vote in local politics.
Last week’s local elections — particularly in Hillsville — demonstrated clearly that, at the local level, every vote does indeed count.

Former Gov. Bob McDonnell raised the bar for restoring voting rights to nonviolent felons who served their sentences, far outpacing his predecessors’ efforts.
By the time he left office, the Republican had streamlined one of the most cumbersome state systems in the U.S. and given 8,137 people the ability to vote, serve on a jury, work as a notary public and run for public office.
His successor, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, has maintained that momentum in his first three months in office, restoring rights to 838 people as of last week.

Editor’s note: Christopher Brooke, who covered Carroll County at The Gazette for the past 17 years, has moved on to become editor for our sister newspaper, The Henry County Local, in Kentucky. We appreciate all he’s done here, and know he will do a great job in his new position. We wish Chris and his wife, Elizabeth Seagraves Brooke — a former Grayson County reporter for The Gazette — all the best.

If I’ve seemed distracted for about the last year, there’s a reason for that.

Elections are coming up on May 6, and voters will get another chance to shape the face of their local government.
What happens at the polls could drastically change what the Twin Counties look like over the next four years.
For some, local elections aren’t as important as the congressional or presidential elections. Some only pay attention to the state or national races, believing that they are the only ones that matter.

Kroger supporters and their grassroots movement might not have prevented their beloved Galax store from closing last month, but it has come to The Gazette’s attention that they did play an integral role in attracting new business to the city.
On April 3, family-owned grocery chain Grants Supermarket announced that it would open a new store in the old Kroger building this summer. In a statement to the newspaper, the owners mentioned that the “Save Kroger” group had caught their attention while they were searching for new spots to expand.

Despite not getting the results they were hoping for, the hundreds of supporters of keeping the Kroger store in Galax have shown a tremendous amount of organization and effort in the past several weeks.
When it was first announced that the store would close March 21, these folks didn’t take the news lightly. Instead, everyone got together and did whatever they could think of to convince the corporation to change its mind.

Carroll supervisors have a plan to help property owners turn their hard-to-reach or inaccessible land into cash.
These ideas, called “Class C subdivisions” and “flag lots” that have entry through driveways known as “flag poles” are proposed modifications to the county’s subdivision ordinance.
Class C subdivisions as proposed would be limited to five lots off a narrow, dead-end road.